V "Red Rain" Written by Scott Rosenbaum and Gregg Hurwitz Directed by Brian Spicer Original air date: January 4, 2011

Erica seeks the answer to the mystery of the red skies. 

Read the detailed episode recap at IMDB

Didja Notice?

At the very opening of the episode, the designs in the bridge railing resemble the letter "V". Also notice that at 00:48 in the episode, we see more clearly that moisture (rain?) on the pillar of the railing makes the V appear to be dripping, a callback to the dripping spray-paint of the original logo of V80.

At 2:40 in the episode, the television in the FBI office tells us it has been 4 days since the coming of the red skies at the end of "Red Sky". 

Marcus tells Anna that the captains of the 29 ships were caught off-guard by her command to release the red sky. "29" is the number of ships that originally came to hover over major cities of Earth in "Pilot". What of the additional ships that arrived over Earth in the episode previous to this one, "Red Sky"? I guess those captains were not caught off-guard by the command since they had just arrived and were expecting to receive some kind of order from their queen. 

Why do the news reports not mention the additional ships now hovering over Earth? (We learn much later in "Devil in a Blue Dress" that the additional ships are cloaked and invisible to both sight and Earth technology.)

We get a glimpse of Ryan's half-Visitor baby floating in a tank of liquid at about 4:53 in the episode.

During Anna's confrontation with Ryan, we learn that his child is a female. 

On Prime Focus, Chad Decker tells us it has been two months since the arrival of the Visitors in "Pilot". 

At 11:50 on the Blu-ray, Anna meets with the captains of the 29 ships, but we only see 20 of them as she walks into the room. Interestingly, they all appear to be male. Notice that the one who is seen whispering something to another as she walks in is the one she decides to kill as an example just a minute later.

At 13:05 on the Blu-ray, an effect of blood spattering on the camera lens is seen as Anna kills one of the ship captains with the barbed end of her reptilian tail.

It seems that we only see red blood during Anna's killing of the hapless ship captain. It could be the blood of the cloned human skin he's wearing but, surely, some Visitor blood must have spattered out of the body. Do the V's also have red blood (unlike the green blood of the Visitors in V80)?  

Anna's "unmasking" of the ship captain here is similar to Juliet Parrish's unmasking of Supreme Commander John in the V80 episode "Unmasked".
ed Rain"	"Unmasked"

At 15:04 on the Blu-ray, the Visitor guard at the Peace Ambassadors Center has writing on the back of his uniform that is the same as seen in earlier episodes, saying OVER CENTER.

At 15:10 on the Blu-ray, one of the protestors' signs says "Better dead than red", a reference to both the current red skies situation and the old anti-communist phrase popularized in the United States during the Cold War. The phrase as used here may also be a slight nod to the red uniforms of the Visitors on the original V series of the 1980s.

There is V writing on the screen next to the picture of Dr. Ellis Watts at 18:15 in episode. Many of the characters are too blurry to make out and the ones that are legible don't seem to spell anything, just a random jumble of letters (mostly J, S, D, F).
 

As Anna makes her announcement about the red rain, we see her image projected underneath the motherships in various cities. The cities are not indentified, but appear to be Rome, Italy and Beijing, China. London, England also appears on a television screen at World News Television.

Answering a question I posed all the way back in the study of "Pilot", the motherships seem to project a live image of Anna speaking that is not only automatically translated into the language native to each city, but, also, alters her lip movements to appear to be speaking the native language as well.

It seems that I've not previously noted the name of the church over which Father Travis and Father Jack preside. Here, we see that it is St. Joseph's Church. Though there is no real world church in New York City by that name, there is a Church of St. Joseph there!

Drs. Ellis Watts and Sidney Miller work at New York State University. Again, this is a fictional university, though there is a university system called State University of New York. 

When Erica and Ryan first bump into Sidney at the university, Erica removes the ear buds from his ears so he can hear them, laying the two buds over his shoulders. But, immediately after, at 23:02 in the episode, the wired buds have disappeared from his person! 

The scene at 23:51 in the episode gives away the fact that the production shot "New York State University" at the Vancouver Art Center, where V is filmed in Vancouver, Canada.
New York State University	Vancouver Art Center

Sidney reveals that the mass grave he found in New Mexico was at least 50 years old by carbon dating. Since a V skeleton was found in it among the human remains, the V's have been on Earth for at least that long (since 1959).

Tyler and Lisa are in what I guess is her private quarters on the mothership when they make love. During this scene, through her enormous picture window, what appear to be a number of lighted vessels can be seen flying around in the vast atrium of the ship.

Erica tells her team that she had preeclampsia when she was pregnant with her son. Preeclampsia is a real condition, also known as toxemia, that can affect pregnant women.

After visiting the six surviving members of her soldier brood, Anna shuts off the medical displays above each one's bed. Did this turn off the systems keeping them alive, thus killing them? Her dialog and reaction seem to hint so, but it's not entirely clear.

Introduced at the very end of the episode, Anna's mother is portrayed by Jane Badler, the original Diana of V80. Her red dress may be a nod to the original red uniforms of the Visitors as well.